Atom Socimi to Go Public With Assets of More than €500 Million

The Atom socimi, founded by Bankinter, offers the bank’s private banking clients an alternative for investing in the hotel sector.

Atom announced its IPO in January and now owns 23 hotels with more than 5,200 rooms, managed by chains such as Meliá and Marriott.

The investment vehicle devised by Bankinter has a 7-year investment horizon, to be followed by disinvestment, though the bank is permitted to extend it

Bankinter will take its socimi public, a listed real estate investment company that has already acquired 23 4- and 5-star hotels spread over Spain. The hotels and their 5,200 rooms are managed by Meliá Hotels International and Marriott International, among others, and are valued at more than 500 million euros. At the end of 2017, the bank began offering its private banking customers the possibility of investing in the socimi, which was dubbed Atom Hotels and constituted on January 5, 2018. Atom was created to acquire a portfolio of hotels for long-term leasing, as Hosteltur tourism news reported late last year.

On February 2, the socimi finalised a capital increase through which it reached a total funding level of €247.8 million and, after that, began acquiring hotels after having analysed a significant number of possible market operations, investing almost all of its available capital. In July, it became known that Meliá had sold the Meliá Sevilla, Sol La Palma and Sol Jandía Mar hotels, in the provinces of Seville, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas, to Atom, while maintaining a contract to manage the properties.

Just a few weeks ago, the socimi signed a syndicated 5-year, 191-million-euro mortgage loan, through which it obtained the necessary financial resources to complete its planned investments and reach a total of 23 hotels in its portfolio.

The portfolio is “well diversified” by asset type, location and operator, with fixed rents of 78%, rental contracts with an average required compliance of 10 years and minimal needed investment as most of the hotels have already been renovated or are in the last stages of renovation, sources said.

The bank intends that the portfolio of hotels should offer the socimi’s shareholders an annual dividend of close to 5%. The socimi is expected to be listed on the MAB, Madrid’s Alternative Stock Market.

Atom’s main shareholders are Bankinter’s private banking clients, with a minimum investment of 200,000 euros and a maximum ceiling of 15% of their financial assets.

Other investors, including Bankinter, the socimi’s manager, GMA, and institutional investors, also have investments of at least €60 million.

The bank led by María Dolores Dancausa allocated roughly 18 million euros while GMA invested another €9 million, so both have sufficient minority stakes in socimi to be represented on its board of directors. Unlike other socimis, Bankinter’s investment vehicle has a disinvestment term of 7 years, although the bank reserves the possibility of extending it.

This is not the first socimi launched by the financial institution. In February 2017, Bankinter launched Ores together with Sonae Sierra, which invests in commercial assets such in Spain and Portugal. Socimis and investment funds have served to boost the sale of hotel portfolios, a report by the Hotel division of Colliers International stated. In the year to June, Spain saw the second largest amount of investments in the country’s history, 1.83 billion euros, down 13% from 2017. Socimis and investment funds played an important role in the feat.